US President Donald Trump has lambasted his long-time critics, The Washington Post and CNN, over the report, which claims he requested that Attorney General William P. Barr hold a press conference to announce that the POTUS did not break any laws during the now infamous call. Trump took to Twitter to tear the new allegations apart as totally untrue.
“The story in the Amazon Washington Post, of course picked up by Fake News CNN, saying ‘President Trump asked for AG Barr to host a news conference clearing him on Ukraine’, is totally untrue and just another FAKE NEWS story with anonymous sources that don’t exist”, he tweeted.
The story in the Amazon Washington Post, of course picked up by Fake News CNN, saying “President Trump asked for AG Barr to host a news conference clearing him on Ukraine,” is totally untrue and just another FAKE NEWS story with anonymous sources that don’t exist....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 7 ноября 2019 г.
He was not sparing with his harsh words for the aforementioned news outlets, calling them “the LameStream Media” and “the Enemy of the People”, saying that they are “working overtime with made up stories in order to drive dissension and distrust”.
Several hours after the initial tweets on the report, Donald Trump was back on social media to reiterate his criticism against The Washington Post and urged to read the transcript.
“Bill Barr did not decline my request to talk about Ukraine. The story was a Fake Washington Post con job with an “anonymous” source that doesn’t exist. Just read the Transcript. The Justice Department already ruled that the call was good. We don’t have freedom of the press!” he tweeted, adding in caps in another post that the outlet had made up the story, before concluding that it “Never happened, and there were no sources!”
He also said in a separate tweet that Barr denies the story as well, taking aim at the journalists who authored it.
The Amazon Washington Post and three lowlife reporters, Matt Zapotosky, Josh Dawsey, and Carol Leonnig, wrote another Fake News story, without any sources (pure fiction), about Bill Barr & myself. We both deny this story, which they knew before they wrote it. A garbage newspaper!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 7 ноября 2019 г.
New Fuel for Impeachment Blaze
The story that prompted his Twitter tirade was published earlier in the day and claimed, citing unnamed sources, that Attorney General William Barr had declined to hold a news conference and clear Trump on the Ukraine inquiry despite POTUS expressing such a wish.
His request was said to have made it to the Justice Department via other officials. According to the outlet, the department has “sought some distance from the White House” amid the impeachment inquiry, although the president and his attorney general remain on good terms.
Road to Impeachment
The ongoing inquiry into Trump and his phone call to Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky was triggered by a whistleblower complaint. The inquiry alleges that the content of the talk, the transcript of which was declassified and made public on Trump’s order, could constitute an abuse of power, as the president was accused of offering a barter exchange. He reportedly vowed to continue aid to Ukraine in exchange for a thorough investigation into his political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s allegedly “corrupt” dealings in Ukraine.
The claims have been vehemently denied by Trump and Republicans, with POTUS vowing to read the transcript of the talk “out loud” to prove that no quid pro quo was implied.